Peppermint Bark

Bark is very easy to make (my students would call it easy peasy lemon squeezey)!

All you need is:

2 cups dark chocolate (I didn't measure but this is my guess)

2 cups white chocolate

2 candy canes

Put the candy canes in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. 

Melt the dark chocolate in the microwave for about a minute and a half - stop every 20 seconds and stir it.  When it is melted spread it on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.  Set aside to cook. 

Note - I put it in the freezer so it would cool quickly but the edges turned up so I wouldn't do it again. 

Wait for the dark chocolate to harden.  Then melt the white chocolate the same way and spread it over the dark chocolate. 

Sprinkle the crushed candy cane over the white chocolate while it is still melted.  Gently press the candy canes into the white chocolate.  Let cool.

Break apart into pieces. 

Yum!  Try not to eat it all in one sitting. 

There are many many variations you could do on this - I usually swirl the white and the dark chocolate together which looks nice.  This time I layered them which I LOVE.  You can put any type of candy on the top - andies mints would be amazing or nuts like slivered almonds or sprinkles.  You can also add a little something to the melted chocolate like peppermint or almond extract or cake mix or anything you think would taste good. 

Vegetable and Meat Lasagna

Vegetable and Meat Lasagna

adapted from this recipe

Gather your ingredients, you will need (I doubled the batch so that is why you see double of everything):

1 pound ground beef

2 tbs. dried onion (or about 1/2 a small onion)

2 tsp. minced garlic (or 4 cloves)

1 (14.5 oz) can stewed tomatoes (Italian style)

1 (12 oz) can tomato paste

1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce

1 tbs. dried basil

3 cups cottage cheese

1 tbs. dried parsley

1 1/2 cups shredded Parmesan cheese

1 carrots - shredded

10 oz spinach - chopped

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

4 cups mozzarella cheese

1 box oven ready lasagna noodles

You will also need containers (I use 6 cups and I LOVE them), and aluminum foil to wrap them for the freezer. I decided to not use the cling wrap and the freezer tape and instead to use gallon sized freezer bags. 

Brown meat (1 pound ground beef)

The beef I use has hardly any fat (I drained it and it was a little over an ounce) but it your meat has a lot of fat then you can drain it off.

Add onions (2 tbs dried) and garlic (2 tsp minced) and cook for 3 minutes. 

Add the stewed tomatoes (14.5 oz can), tomato paste (12 oz can), tomato sauce (15 ox can), and basil (1 tbs.). 

Put the lid on and simmer for 30 minutes.  Stir often (ever 3-5 minutes).

Meanwhile ...

If you haven't chopped the spinach or shredded the carrot - now would be the perfect time.

Mix together the cottage cheese (3 cups), parsley (1 tbs dried), Parmesan cheese (1 1/2 cups), shredded carrot, chopped spinach (10 oz), eggs (2), salt, and pepper (1/2 tsp each).

Line your pans with foil. 

Get the lasagna noodles (1 box) and the mozzarella cheese (4 cups).

When the sauce is done your house will smell amazing.  You will want to eat the entire pot, but just eat a spoonful or two!

Start assembling.  I like to put a little sauce on the bottom.

then a layer or noodles,

a few scoops of the cheese and spinach mixture - spread it around,

A few scoops of the sauce,

and sprinkle some mozzarella cheese. 

Repeat the layers. 

Put aluminum foil over the top.

Then add the lid. 

Stack them up (this recipe will make 3 of this size or 1 full sized),

And stick them in the freezer.

This next step is only is you want to freeze the lasagna without the containers (this is the first time I am trying this).

After the lasagna has frozen solid, let it thaw for a few minutes on the counter and pry it from the container.  It is pretty easy when it has thawed for a few minutes.  Wrap the whole thing in foil again. 

Write the cooking directions on the outside of a gallon sized freezer bag.  Cook at 350 for 45 - 60 minutes, then take the top foil off and cook an additional 10 minutes (to brown the cheese on the top). 

then stack them up in the freezer. 

When you are ready to enjoy -  pull it out of the freezer and put back into the container the night before to let it thaw out a bit in the fridge.  Then cook as directed above. 

The cheese is a little too brown because I took the foil off when I started cooking it, but it was still amazing!

I love the added vegetables in the lasagna.  I always see recipes for meat OR vegetable lasagna and this is a great combination of both meat and veggies!  Adding the veggies makes it a complete meal and even Micheal (Mr. Picky-Poo) loves this lasagna.  Even his meat and potatoes only, I hate veggies, brother liked this lasagna.  So, I would say it is a keeper!  I doubled the batch and now I have 5 lasagnas in the freezer so I don't have to cook one night a week for a few weeks and we had dinner to take over to Paula's!

Serve it with a side salad and some garlic french bread and enjoy!

Here is the recipe again just in case you just want the text version:

Vegetable and Meat Lasagna

1 pound ground beef

brown, then add

2 tbs. dried onion (or about 1/2 a small onion)

2 tsp. minced garlic (or 4 cloves)

add

1 (14.5 oz) can stewed tomoatoes (italian style)

1 (12 oz) can tomato paste

1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce

1 tbs. dried basil

and simmer for 30 minutes.

Combine

3 cups cottage cheese

1 tbs. dried parsley

1 1/2 cups shredded parmesan cheese

1 carrots - shredded

10 oz spinach - chopped

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

and set aside. 

Layer sauce, cottage cheese mixture and  

4 cups mozzorella cheese

1 box oven ready lasagna noodles

Freeze or cook at 350 for 45-60 minutes then cook an additional 10 minutes to brown cheese on top. 

Enjoy!

Just a note on price - for one batch, the ingedients cost $15.79, it made 3 containers - each will give us dinner and two lunches (6 servings) which makes it $0.88 a serving! 

I linked to Hunk of Meat Mondays at Beyer Beware, Made by You Monday at Skip to My Lou, and One Project at a Time at A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Hunk of Meat Monday: Pork Chops

Michael LOVES pork chops. 

My favorite defrosting method - putting the meat in a bowl of cold water.  It defrosts them quickly and that helps since I never remember to take the meat out of the freezer a couple days before (it takes a few days to defrost in our fridge). 

Here they are!

Four chops for two people - we took them for lunch the next day (and I forgot to eat lunch - it happens when I work through lunch and recess, my stomach doesn't realize it until the kids leave)

I made a spice rub with garlic powder, pepper, oregano, and some salt.  But, you can use anything you like!  Cinnamon and brown sugar sounds really good right now.

A rub is so easy - you literally just rub it on, turn the hunk of meat over and rub it on the other side.

Get the pan hot, and put the pork on.  Let it cook for a few minutes.

Turn it over and brown the other side.

At this point you can put it in the oven to cook it the rest of the way, but I didn't want to heat up the house - today I do, but I cooked these a few weeks ago.  I just put the lid on and added some water (so it wouldn't burn on the bottom). 

I like to use a meat thermometer to check to see if it is done, but i think I need a new one because this has to be wrong.  I over cooked it, so if you use a thermometer make sure it works! 

Here are the pork chops served with fried zuchini and roasted potatoes.

Enjoy!  What are hunk of meat did you enjoy this evening?

- linking up to Hunk of Meat Monday over at Beyer Beware -

Hunk of Meat Monday: Chicken Wraps

My favorite restaurant is Red Robin.  The customer service is fantastic and the food is good too.  They also have a great drink selection including the absolute freckled lemonade. - yum!  A favorite of Michael's is the BBQ chicken wrap, so I wanted to try and re-create it.  Here goes:

Start with a roasted chicken.  You could also use left-over chicken which was my original plan. 

Shred the chicken

Start with a wrap (a tortilla would work too you just have to put less filling in it).  Put some ranch on it.

Then lettuce

Then cheese

Then carrots and crushed up tortilla chips (like Red Robin - for a little crunch)

Then tomatoes and chicken

Then more chicken

And finally top with two strips of bacon.

Fold the end and roll up the sides and you have a chicken wrap. 

I was really impressed!!  So easy to make but good and a complete meal.  Next time we will add less lettuce and other filling and more chicken.  

The real tests for all of our meals is if Michael likes it.  I can tell when he really really like something - he gets out a container and starts making his lunch for the next day with the leftovers (this rarely happens).  If he really likes it then he will tell me he wants to take the leftovers for lunch and I will put them in a container for him.  And if he thinks it is ok then he will decline taking left overs for lunch.  There were not leftovers (since we only made two wraps) but I did ask Michael if he would take a wrap for lunch and he said yes - so this meal was a success!

The Story of Cherry Limeade

Once upon a time there was a girl who, while selling beef and pork at the local farmer's market, was forced to stare at delicious cherries one long hot summer day.  This forced the girl to buy 8 pounds of cherries for $5 at the end of the market - the deal of the century!  Or so she thought.  She didn't know that 8 pounds of cherries seemed to multiply while sitting in her fridge.  She didn't know that after eating what seemed like a pound she would be tired of eating them.  She didn't know she would spend hours of google trying to find a way to get rid of them use them up.  So, that was the story of how this started - the girl is me and the story is true - can you believe 8 pounds of fresh, delicious, local cherries for only $5?   $5 is a bargain if I use them all up but $5 is a waste of money if I let them go bad. So, I searched ways to use up the cherries and came across this Strawberry Lemonade concentrate recipe - YUM!!  Don't know how I found it since it does not contain cherries but I decided to give it a try with cherries instead of strawberries.

I washed and took the stems off all the cherries. 

I let them dry in a salad spinner (since I don't have one of those fancy colanders).

Then I pitted them.  I will be honest - this sucked, took 2 hours, AND dyed my hands reddish.  If I ever do this again I will buy a pitter. 

I measured out 2 cups then chopped them.  I then realized that I needed a blender and drove to my mom's to try to steal borrow hers. 

The borrowed blender and the start of the recipe below. 

Here is the recipe:

Cherry Puree:

2 cups pitted cherries, roughly chopped

2 tbs. sugar

1. Put the cherries and sugar in a blender and blend until smooth.  

Cherry Limeade Concentrate:

3/4 cup cherry puree (recipe above - you can freeze the left over for later)

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup lime juice (for lemonade use 1 cup lemon juice)

1. Mix ingredients together.

2. Freeze or serve with 5 cups cold water.

I made both lemonade and limeade and the limeade was my favorite!!  I also tried to freeze the concentrate in ice cube trays to use later but that didn't work - maybe you will have better luck with that. 

It was so easy to make (minus the whole 2 hour cherry pitting nightmare) and turned out delicious!!  I will be making this again!! 

Oh, and one more thing - I didn't take any end pictures (or any middle pictures) but it did look just as good at it tasted so if you could just picture the end product in this fancy glass but with limes instead of lemons and cherries instead of strawberries that would be great - thank you!

What is your favorite summer beverage?